


Divide

by bakers_impala221



Series: Division [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Benny Lafitte & Dean Winchester Friendship, Cassie - Freeform, Coming Out, Dean Winchester - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Gabriel - Freeform, LGBT, Loner, M/M, Misgendering, Sam Winchester - Freeform, Trans, castiel - Freeform, castiel novak - Freeform, destiel au, home groups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 09:15:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17639996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakers_impala221/pseuds/bakers_impala221
Summary: Castiel Novak has a secret no one can know. But it's tiring beyond understanding, and the weight is far too much to bear. When the new home group teacher tells the class to sort themselves into two, Cas faces a decision on whether or not to reveal that secret. But now a year-long crush, Dean Winchester, is watching, and that might just change everything.





	Divide

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first proper Destiel fanfiction, so I apologise for any mischaracterisation.  
> However, I hope you enjoy

With the heaviness of my books weighing down my right arm, I walked with head bowed and my eyes fixated on my feet as they stepped in through the door. Without looking up more than once to scan for empty seats, I crossed the floor, beelining my way over to the only empty chair left in the room. My heart sank as I lowered myself into the front-row chair, positioned at the end of the row, placed inconveniently in the dead-centre of the room. The skin on the back of my neck prickled with anxiety as I could feel the stares of twenty or so kids on me as they either talked amongst themselves or looked up expectantly at the teacher.

  I kept my eyes trained forward, ignoring the thrumming through my legs, the unconscious tension in them, my heart beat knocking in my ears at a rate just too fast for normalcy, and the delusion of every eye gazing on me and watching me with a knowing scrutiny they couldn’t possibly have.

  After two minutes, that in me resembled the entire imminent year, the teacher spoke and I could feel the misconstrued gazes move away and redirect themselves to the speaker. She introduced herself with vexatious enthusiasm, and I silently sighed to myself both in relief and disappointment as she continued her overly eager speech that resonated in stark contrast to the darkness slowly filling the crevices in my mind.

  I zoned in and out intermittently, alternating focus between the dark, shallow thoughts and the light, high-pitched voice of the woman on stage. I gathered the occasional phrases; how the school had implemented a home group system that year; how she was to be the manager of our class; that she was to explain the function and layout of the new class during this session.

  When I looked back up again, she had moved to the back of the room and begun calling out names from the role. My heart somehow sunk and raced simultaneously as I awaited the impending catastrophe with my arms wrapped tightly around the books on the table, a sharp corner of a textbook biting sharply into my forearm.

  Then she got to that name: ‘Uh, Cassie?’ she called, looking up expectantly with a smile. I opened my mouth, praying for my throat not to close up, and my voice to remain strong enough to be heard, and I called out a reply, an awkward soft and hesitant sound that made me want to bury my face into my arms and melt away into the floor.

  But then she’d moved onto the next name and the tension eased slowly out of my shoulders, and the roaring in my ears dulled to a minimum, and I allowed myself to glance casually to the wall to my left to inspect the class out of the peripheral of my vision. No one was watching me; no one cared.

  I let out a breath and sunk back a little in my seat, allowing the pain in my back to settle a bit as the backrest took over some of the tension.

 

  The class dragged on; the teacher -Ms Angie- had had to yell twice to end the roar of disruptive discussion, and then would continue by speaking of awful, boring things, like getting to know people better (I’d rolled my eyes discernibly, unable to keep from doing so-- as _if_ I hadn’t gotten to know this class in the two years I’d been forced into it; the thought of being pushed back into it for another year, even if only for once a week, made my stomach churn unpleasantly).

  All of a sudden, people were standing up and she was sorting us into groups. I glanced over at the people in the row of desks with me-- homophobes; judgemental people. I begged silently to not be sorted with them. When she’d started to gesture at them to become a group, I shifted subtly away and more towards whatever group of people were behind me, of whom I didn’t dare turn to inspect. I heard a low chuckle and I prayed that they would be kind and allow me into their group; I didn’t think anyone would want me among them, but perhaps they would be respectful enough not to flat-out refuse.

  Then Ms. Angie turned towards me, a smile decorated across her face. I swallowed thickly and kept my eyes away from the other students, but subtly turned my head to my right in the hope that it would influence her into sorting me with whatever group of people it was who stood there.

  She spoke words I didn't bother listen to and gestured a circle around myself and the people behind me, and I let out a breath of relief. I picked up my books deliberately and turned very slowly, eyes downcast to the floor as I deposited them onto the group of desks pushed together into a rectangle. Without glancing up once, I turned back and dragged my former chair over to the edge of the tables and sat in it quietly, scared to meet the eyes of the unwilling party I’d been invited into.

  The teacher moved on away from the group, and I lifted up my hands and pulled the school books to the edge of the desk in attempt to take up no more room than absolutely necessary, loath to inconvenience them any more than it was possible to avoid. One of the people at the table coughed and then spoke to a friend, and my mind wandered.

  I looked up to the perimeter of the table and watched the bodies sitting around it without seeing their faces. I vaguely wondered what they would say if they knew things I did. Whether they’d still leave me alone here, begrudgingly accepting the misfit at the table-- just for the moment, or if they’d make me leave; demand the teacher move me into another group, only for me then to be rejected by every other person successively. I wondered then if the word would spread like disease; a contagious rumour passing in whispers until everyone around me knew, and I’d be forced to live out life here day by day, avoided by anyone and everyone, looking down as I passed them to blur out their disgusted glares as they watched me. Eventually, I’d have to leave entirely; evicted by the cold malice of their judgment, and passed on into a new world of blackness, where it would all start over again--

  I felt a firm hand on my shoulder before I heard the voice. The steady strength in it grounding me and pulling me back from my shadows. I looked up, the last remnants of voices fading away, whispering from the back of my mind “ _they can never know…”_ The arm shook me again, ever so slightly, and I blinked, refocusing on the person attached to me. I smiled politely, hoping nothing in my expression gave me away too badly.

  They smiled back, a strange, charming smile, ‘hey,’ they said, eyes crinkling and teeth shining bright. It was comfortingly genuine. I looked back down.

  ‘I’m Dean,’ they continued. My eyes snapped back up within an instant. _Shit,_ I thought quickly. _Shit shit shit_.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met before,’ he said, his left arm rising to bring his hand to his chest. ‘I’m Dean Winchester, this is my friend Benny, and this is Gabe,’ he turned his hand to gesture at them each in turn.

  I nodded abruptly, my mind whirring and dizzy.

  ‘And you’re…’ he continued, my stomach dropped in dread, ‘Cas. Right?’

  I nodded again, heart hammering, and confused. I could see the world tip slightly as I tilted my head. ‘Yes… how did you know?’

  He chuckled and I watched as this time his brought his hand to the back of his neck, ‘I uh-- I heard the role call before.’

  My eyes flicked to his friend’s, watching him with a curious gaze. My eyebrows burrowed.

  Neutralising my expression again, I looked towards his right hand, still planted firmly on my shoulder. I spoke quietly, ‘… right.’

  He followed my gaze in curiousity until his saw his own hand, and he lifted it again slowly and then lowered it again briefly to pat my shoulder as if in apology, before removing it and bringing it back to the desk to join the other. He leaned forward in his chair to readjust himself a bit before turning back to me, his smile bright again.

  ‘So,’ he began, ‘excited for the new semester?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said quietly.

He laughed empathatically, amused. ‘Yeah… me neither,’ he said, he looked over to his friend, then back to me. ‘It’s only my second year here,’ he said conversationally.

I nodded. _I know_ , I thought, noticing again that my heart rate was a little above the normal pace.

‘How long have you been here?’ he asked, leaning over with his shoulder as if to nudge me into conversation.

I looked down at the table. ‘Forever,’ I replied grimly.

‘All three years? You been in this class before?’ he asked, glancing around at the rest of the students, yelling at each other and laughing far too loudly.

‘Yes, for every subject for the first two years,’ I said quietly.

‘Mm,’ he nodded empathetically. ‘Can’t imagine how that would have been.’

_Horrible,_ I wanted to say. I looked around at the people that filled up the classroom to the brim. _It was_ so _bad I would walk into the classroom and want to die._ My chest went hollow and my lungs abruptly lost their oxygen. _I would feel this emptiness fill me up and my thoughts would go bitter and cold, and everything was so bad I could feel myself drowning silently in the sound, and--_

‘You okay?’ he asked, pulling me once again from my thoughts.

I smiled tightly, unable to look at him, and I looked back down at my hands. _This was a bad idea_ , I thought. _I can’t… I can’t talk to him, especially not about this. I can’t ruin his life with problems. I can’t ruin his life with this shit. I can’t take that smile from him, can’t watch his face fill with disgust or his eyes fill with horror, and I can’t watch him leave. I can’t; I can’t and I won’t._

I could see Dean moving around in my peripheral vision, and I wanted to talk with him, I wanted to tell him everything; I wanted him to be my friend-- I wanted him. But I forced myself not to. I didn’t speak again.

 

When the teacher spoke again, I didn’t raise my eyes up from the table. I listened past the low humming in my head to vaguely hear her explain the proceeding activity, without processing a word. Then she walked over to our table and put a thin stack of white paper between us.

As she left, I reached out absentmindedly to slide one slowly over to myself, keeping my eyes deliberately on the paper reflecting bright white light from the lights overhead. When it was close enough to examine, I scanned over it apathetically, the noise in my head intensifying. I tried reading over the writing, but found I couldn’t hear my inner speech over the sound.

I tried again-- but I still couldn’t hear anything.

I huffed out a breath. The white static noise suddenly turned into ringing and drowned out everything besides one voice, and it whispered softly yet broke through the tinnitus with ease. I wanted to bury my face in my hands, or knock my head until it broke, but I knew it wouldn’t stop. I wanted to scream, but became vaguely aware of the people around me, and found I couldn’t.

Then I noticed that my eyes were still open, glaring down at the paper like it had somehow offended me. I focused in on that; on the whiteness beneath my eyes, on the black lines covered over it. And then on the sound around me-- the real hum of voices and laughter, on the sound of the wind whispering past the trees and rustling their leaves. I zeroed in on the sound of laughter to my left. A deep, rumbling sound I’d somehow learned to admire from afar.

I looked up, and for a moment my eyes couldn’t adjust to the light from outside, and it panned out around the silhouette of the source of laughter like a spotlight on a model in a photo shoot. Then the light dimmed as my eyes focused, and the green eyes met mine, sparkling in the sunshine like emeralds. Time seemed to stop, and I felt transfixed and frozen, as if his gaze had me pinned to the spot.

Eventually the eye contact got too much, and I looked away to my hands, coughing quietly and willing my heart to settle. When I looked back up, Dean had turned away to Benny, discussing something lightly between them. Then I looked across the table at Gabe and noticed the paper scrunched up between his hands.

‘Are you not going to complete that?’ I asked curiously, gesturing to the paper in his hands.

He looked at me, ‘well, Cassie-o,’ he said lightly, ‘I happen to have many better ways to spend my time.’ He picked up the ball of paper and began tossing it up and down playfully, whether to emphasise his point or for general amusement, I couldn’t tell.

I nodded, not willing to engage in a debate over that with someone I didn’t know. I suddenly felt Dean eyes bear sharply into me and I gazed back up at him again, and he spoke.

‘Gabriel’s always been like that. He’s about the complete opposite of little Sammy,’ he said, chuckling a little at the thought as he looked over at him.

I glanced between Dean and Gabriel, gaining the impression I was missing something important, and unable to make the connection that the table seemed to have understood instinctively.

Feeling uncomfortably out of place, I asked quietly, ‘who’s that?’

Dean looked back at me. ‘My pain-in-the-ass little brother,’ he said gleefully. He nodded towards Gabriel, ‘this one’s gotten himself hooked up with the little nerd.’

Not knowing what to say, I nodded, staying quiet.

Gabriel, however, had different ideas, ‘back before he caught us together, Dean-o here thought I’d been crushing on him the whole time. You should have seen the look of surprise on his face when he caught us together in the basement and realised it had actually been his brother.’

When I looked over at him, Dean’s face had turned a very light shade of pink. He laughed nervously, ‘hey, in my defence,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘I hadn’t even noticed you even knew each other. Didn’t seem to be any other reason for you to be so eager to come over 24/7.’

‘Well, you know, Dean-o, what can I say? Your brother has a nice ass-- hey!’ He yelped as a small blue and white checkered pencil case flew across the table in his direction.

Once Gabriel had thrown the pencil case back (barely missing me), and turned back to resume throwing the paper up and down, whistling a tune I didn’t recognise, Dean turned back to me.

‘So, uh… do you wanna work together on this thing, or…?’ he asked in a way that seemed almost nervous.

I glanced briefly down at the sheet. ‘Oh, I wasn’t listening to the instruction; I don’t actually know what is it I’m supposed to be doing.’

‘Oh, it’s okay, I can show you,’ he said, winking.

Stunned into place, I didn’t move, glancing away nervously.

‘Hey, easy there, brother,’ Benny chimed in, leaning forward and patting him on the shoulder. He smiled at me knowingly, as if to share a secret between us I couldn’t discern. He looked back over at his friend, ‘the girl barely knows you.’

Dean reached up to brush the back of his neck, and my stomach dropped viciously to the floor. I looked back down at my hands and the sounds around me began to fade out slightly underneath a low buzzing noise.

‘Hey,’ I could hear Dean shifting in his seat beside me. I lifted my head to indicate I was listening, but kept my eyes trained on the desk. ‘Sorry if I’m coming in a bit strong,’ he said apologetically.

I shook my head, ‘it’s fine, it doesn’t matter, Dean.’

He exhaled loudly, ‘really?’ he asked sounding skeptical.

‘Really,’ I intoned sincerely, too tired to worry about how he’d interpret my paralanguage.

 

When Ms Angie had come back to collect the sheets from us, she smiled brightly again and addressed us all before continuing.

‘Well, for our next activity, I’d like you all to stand up once again,’ she said cheerily.

My arm dropped in front of me onto the desk in exhaustion and I stood up reluctantly from the chair.

Looking as if she was on the verge of bursting into celebration and applause, the teacher explained the next task enthusiastically. Using her arms to gesture to each wall, she explained loudly, ‘so, for this next activity, I’d like it if all girls in the room moved to my left, and all the boys to the right.’

Within an instant, time literally stopped, and white-hot panic shot through me. I felt sick to the gut and as if I’d just run a marathon. Time resumed once more and I could see the room divide into its two sections around me, and I felt frozen so that all I could do was watch in dread.

When the entire room had moved to their respective side, I managed to turn and lock onto kind green eyes, ignoring the dozens of others I knew this time really were staring at me.

The nausea intensified and I felt dizzy, my body hummed with electricity and adrenaline, I knew I had two choices, both of them almost equally unpleasant. I could either make more a scene, furthering the intense scrutiny currently on me, or I could follow the path I was always expected to take.

For a moment it occurred to me how stupidly ridiculous it all was, how easy it should be and was for everyone else; the bizarre and unspoken-of privilege it revealed.

Then I thought of Dean, and the year-long admiration I’d had for him, how the green eyes that sparkled would dull to matt when he knew the reality hidden behind all the superficial masks I wore as daily makeup. How any minuscule chance I might have had would evaporate away instantly from within my clutch, and I’d be cast out and abandoned by him just like everyone else.

Then I thought of the rest of the audience; how they would gawk in shock or disgust and whisper among themselves. How they would leave at the end of the hour and spread the news like wildfire, destroying any blank reputation it was that I’d earned for myself over the years, and instead start to treat me like the outsider I’d always known I was and deserved to be. I imagined the world like that, losing it’s last remnants of colour as they turned their backs on me and laughed mockingly at the recent news; that the loner they’d all known and ignored was now really a confirmed freak.

But then I imagined the alternative; how the room would watch me trudge to my carved-out place and stand in a spot moulded to my shape. I thought of the simplicity in that torture, and how unbearably regular it would seem to almost anyone else. I imagined that name being said over and over in my mind until it brought me to the edge and finally, inevitably tipped me over. How little anyone else would care; how unbearably common it would be.

Within a second I knew what to do, and I took a deep breath to steel myself. When I looked over unthinkingly to seek out the familiar sparkle of green and an accompanied dust of freckles, I was met by an expression that startled me into place momentarily.

Strong green eyes bore into mine, a strange, almost ethereal look of understanding and encouragement coating his expression. He seemed to nod subtly and I pulled my gaze away and turned to face the front of the room in slow motion.

I took a deep breath, ignoring the shakiness in my voice and the adrenaline in my veins, I spoke, and suddenly time picked up its pace back to normal. ‘This is a poorly chosen and inconsiderate precursor. And for the record: there are more than the two choices you have given us,’ and I marched over to the right with what seemed like a lot more dignity than I felt I had.

**Author's Note:**

> For some background information:  
> This was written two days after my first home group class session (the school only introduced it this year and now for 40 minutes a week I'm back with an awful class I'd been forced into for two consecutive years); up until Ms Angie sorts the class into groups, almost the entire thing was based on what really happened to me (besides being called "Cassie"), and many of the details following that are also real. I was trying to do some homework when I suddenly wondered what would happen if we'd been forced to separate into two genders like this, and how on earth I would have chosen. That gave me inspiration, and I decided that I would write this (and procrastinate completing my difficult speech on trans rights that I have been writing and ignoring for weeks over the summer holidays).  
> I usually don't write long end notes like this, but I thought this could be an interesting aspect for you all to know if you were interested.  
> I love and appreciate all comments and kudos. Thank you a tonne for reading Xx


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